Doomsday.

So apparently the world is going to end on December 21, 2012. No really, it's true. Google it. I'll wait...Are you back? Good. Let's continue.

So doomsday is December 21, 2012. The Internet says so. So do the ancient Mayans. So how will it end? I think some possibilities are...

• Attack Of The Radioactive Hamsters From A Planet Near Mars: Lots of rodents, death and destruction. "Weird" Al Yankovic becomes a prophet, but unfortunately no one is alive to notice.
• Hillary Clinton gets elected to her second term as president, resulting in mass suicide.
• Aliens invade the earth and unleash their most fearful weapon--a device that renders all televisions, computers and radios inoperable. People are forced to go outside and interact face-to-face with each other and the environment. Not knowing what to do, they are defenseless. Final score: Aliens 6,500,000, humans 0.
• Meteor strike. Very cliched. Also not very likely, since obviously Chuck Norris would just roundhouse kick it back to where it came from.
• Nobody tells God that December 21, 2012 is doomsday. He finally hears about it on December 14, but checks his daytimer and realizes that he already has another meeting that day. The earth is spared.

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Behold the mighty power of the atom!

Six Degrees of Me.

I have been tagged to reveal six "quirky" and "unimportant" things about myself by livingsword.  Okay, here we go...

1. One of my friends on Facebook just nominated me as the person she knows who is most likely to use the word "superfluous" correctly in a sentence.  She is right.

2. I am mentioned in the preface of an out-of-print book.

3. At one point in high school, I was close to fluent in Spanish.  I can still read it pretty well, but anything else is pretty hard nowadays.

4. I have an uncanny knack for remembering insignificant details with remarkable clarity (e.g., the vowel-pointing pattern for Hebrew verbs in the Piel Imperfect conjugation), but I have a hard time remembering important things, like people's names.

5. Animals like me.

6. In 2003, I finished in the top 20 at the US 1/2-marathon championships in Kansas City.

A Chance Meeting of Friends.

We met in a Turkish prison cell. I was caught on a covert mission for the CIA (curse that bartender! He was merely a serendipitous fool, and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time); he never told me why he was there. He did tell me how we were to escape, and escape we did.

With Houdini-like skill, he picked the lock on the door in the blink of an eye. "Follow me, and you may live," he told me. I did as instructed. Creeping along the shadows, backs against the wall, we made our way toward freedom. Near the hall entrance, he crept up behind a tall, burly guard, and with one precisely delivered blow, felled him silently to the ground. Now we were armed.

The guards at the main entrance never stood a chance. We were out of the jail within minutes, and nobody was the wiser.

After buying decent clothing and new passports (which weren't hard to come by if one knew the right people, which he did), we boarded a plane for Paris. On the plane, he said to me, "I cannot guarantee you will live to see tomorrow, but if you will be my partner, I can guarantee that you will not regret dying today." He said nothing else; I agreed with a nod.

I cannot speak of the adventures we had; it would take me a lifetime to recount them all. But I must speak of the day he died. He had been gut-shot during a botched train robbery in Luxembourg. We had still managed to flee the scene, but we had been forced to leave the Hope Diamond on the train. We hid in a small cave on a nearby hillside. I held him in my arms and knew he would not survive the hour. Though he seldom spoke in all the years I had known him, on this occasion, he thanked me for my service. "Kind friend," I replied, "I have served you faithfully since the day we met, and I have asked for little. But now, before you pass, I must know, what is your name?"

With his dying breath he whispered, "My name is Bravo de la Tromeo."

Why Tigers?

I suppose you may be wondering why I like tigers.  Well, the short answer is, I like them because they are awesome.  They are the biggest cats in the world.  Like all cats, they look upon you with indifference.  They know who they are.  Do you know who you are?  

They are incredibly powerful and graceful.  They are orange and black--how cool is that?  Even their skin is striped, not just their fur.  If you ever watch the episode of Dirty Jobs where Mike feeds the animals at the zoo, you will notice something.  When he feeds the animals, he walks up to the cage, puts the food in, no problem.  When he feeds the tiger, the zookeeper opens a tiny little slit in the cage, Mike throws the food in, yanks his hand back before the tiger rips it off, and then runs like the wind to safety as the zookeeper closes the slit.  This is the fear and respect that the tiger commands.  You don't see people treating baby chimps like that.  No, sir.

How much do I like tigers?  Well, I like them enough to have two house cats.  I like them enough that my wife has to drag me away from their enclosure at the zoo.  I like them so much that I got one tattooed on me, as you can see.

Tigers--nature's Rambo, Terminator and Predator, all wrapped into one.

The Worst of the Worst.

My wife and I watched Ebert and Roeper's annual Worst Films of the Year show, so I thought I would throw in my two cents in several categories.

Worst movie ever: 9th Gate. I went to a free screening of this movie back in college. I wanted my money back. The entire lack of a plot coupled with Johnny Depp having relations with the Devil (don’t worry, she’s female) made me want to perform a lobotomy on myself, but I didn’t have any sharp objects with me in the theater.

Worst song ever: David Banner, Run Girl. This “song” is the musical equivalent of Linda Blair’s projectile vomit. The song is comprised completely of a “beat” that was probably recorded by a drunk, retarded monkey on a drum set, some type of vinyl-scratch noise that makes me want to rip out my own eardrums (that's cochleae for you scientific types), and a guy whispering about a girl running on a treadmill.

Worst music video ever: Also David Banner, Run Girl. Four minutes of girls running on treadmills. I think that retarded monkey was the director, too.

Worst book I have read in the last two years: Tie, God’s Politics by Jim Wallace, Monkey Girl by Edward Humes. God’s Politics was all about Jim’s ideas. Apparently God is a democrat after all. Who knew? Humes used verbal trickery and deceit to make non-evolutionists look like Neandertals in this “unbiased” and “journalistic” book.

Worst sports team jersey ever: 1980s Denver Nuggets. The Denver skyline printed by a huge dot-matrix printer. No wonder they lost so many games.

Worst TV show ever: Every reality show.

Worst surprise to get at a Mexican restaurant: Chicharrones. Don’t ask. Or order. Trust me.

Who Owns Whom?

I am amazed at the ability my cats have to communicate with me.  You'd think for an animal that has a brain the size of--hang on, let me check--a kiwi, let's say, they wouldn't have that much to say.  Ah, but they are devious little buggers.  It's like I have two furry ten-pound kids with razors attached to their feet.  I digress.  Not only do I know each cat by their meow, but I know what each meow means.  For instance, when Emma says, "MEOW!" that means, "Did you forget about me?  Why aren't you petting me?  How dare you forget about me, insolent fool!"  You know, come to think of it, that's pretty much all she ever says.  Well, she talks to D'Artagnan occasionally, but she usually says, "We are not amused."

Now D'Artagnan, on the other hand, says a bit more.  Usually it's, "Good lord, I can't do my business in that box!  Change the litter, man! It's like a port-o-potty at Woodstock in there!"  This is very similar to and often confused with, "Hey you!  Come down here! I want to feign excitement about playing with you, and then get tired of it after 30 seconds.  Sucker!"  He also likes to remind us when we sleep in: "Hey!  You're supposed to be up by now!  You're going to be late for...wherever it is you go all day."  I swear he can read a clock.  Digital, that is. I'm not too sure about analog yet.  Time will tell.

New Blog!

So I'm starting a new blog.  Tiger's Got My Back will still be my primary blog, but I just wanted a place where I could, given sufficient inspiration, blog about...whatever I feel like.  Whenever I feel like.  However I feel like.  Dig it.  So here goes nothing.